In the al-Nafura region of Asyut, Egypt, an increasingly common scene took place earlier this month.

According to sources, four “unknown persons” armed with automatic weapons came upon the Coptic wood merchant while he was working in front of his home, coerced him into their car, and sped away.

Later, one of his relatives received a phone call demanding a hefty ransom to release the Christian man: 500,000 Egyptian pounds—the equivalent of approximately $72,000 USD, an exorbitant sum for any resident in Upper Egypt.

Such scenarios—Coptic children or adults abducted at gunpoint and held (and sometimes killed or forced to convert to Islam) by “unknown persons” in exchange for money—are on the rise in Egypt (see here, here, here, here, and here for some recent examples).

The logic of these many “unknown persons” is simple: according to Islamic law, non-Muslims are required to pay jizya, or tribute, in order not to be molested or plundered (see Koran 9:29).

However, because the jizya has been abolished since the 19th century, thanks to the intervention of colonial powers, these “unknown persons” have found a way to make a profit that is conscionable enough for them: target Christian minorities in their midst for ransom money and justify it all in the context of receiving their just due of jizya from them.

If Christian infidels are not made to pay tribute to the state—as Koran 9:29 mandates and as Salafis regularly insist—the “jizya-vigilantes” will get that money one way or another.

The prevalence of this mentality becomes more evident when one considers that the phenomenon of Muslims kidnapping and holding for ransom Christians is occurring all around the Muslim world—including in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Nigeria, Sudan—and not just Egypt.

“Some people said they saw burned pages of the Quran in a garbage bin near the home of a Hindu man.” That was all it took. It could have been planted (as a Muslim cleric planted burned Qur’an pages to frame a Christian girl for blasphemy in 2011), or the Hindu may have burned it inadvertently among items left behind by the Muslim family who rented his house to him. In any case, it is madness to riot and burn a Hindu center over such a thing, but no one dares call it madness, and so it will continue.

“Crowd sets fire to Hindu center in Pakistan,” by Adil Jawad for the Associated Press, March 16 (thanks to A):

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — An angry crowd set fire to a Hindu community center in southern Pakistan after allegations circulated that a Hindu had desecrated Islam’s holy book, police said Sunday.

The incident took place overnight in the city of Larkana in Sindh province after some people said they saw burned pages of the Quran in a garbage bin near the home of a Hindu man, said Anwar Laghari, the area police officer.

Violence triggered by allegations of Quran desecration and other allegedly blasphemous acts is common in conservative Pakistan. A controversial Pakistani law imposes the death penalty, but sometimes crowds take the law into their own hands and attacked the accused, often members of a religious minority in the majority Sunni Muslim state.

Laghari said that a crowd of about 200 angry people gathered and attacked the community center, which was next to a Hindu temple. He said the building was partly gutted, while the alleged desecrater and his family members were taken into protective custody.

The officer said initial investigation revealed that the Hindu rented the house from a Muslim family and cleaned it before he moved in. He may have burned the holy book inadvertently, the policeman said.

Crowds also attacked Hindu property in the nearby towns of Usta Mohammad, Dera Allah Yar and Sohbat Pur, but they were dispersed by police, senior officer Syed Ashfaq Anwar said. They are in a part of adjoining Baluchistan province where significant numbers of Hindus live.

Anwar said dozens attempted to set fire to a temple and some shops owned by Hindus. Police fired tear gas shot and shot into the air. He said someone from the crowd fired at the police, and two civilians and an officer were wounded.

From their names, they seem to have been converts from Islam to Christianity. Leaving Islam is, according to Islamic law, a capital offense. Muhammad commanded: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.” There is only disagreement over whether the law applies only to men, or to women also – some authorities hold that apostate women should not be killed, but only imprisoned in their houses until death.

Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious and inﬂuential institution in the Sunni world, certifies as a reliable guide to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni Muslim community a manual of Islamic law that states: “When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed” (Reliance of the Traveller o8.1). Although the right to kill an apostate is reserved in Islamic law to the leader of the community and other Muslims can theoretically be punished for taking this duty upon themselves, in practice a Muslim who kills an apostate needs to pay no indemnity and perform no expiatory acts (as he must in other kinds of murder cases under classic Islamic law). This accommodation is made because killing an apostate “is killing someone who deserves to die” (Reliance of the Traveller o8.4).

Qaradawi even said last year: “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn’t exist today.” And so Sadia Ali Omar and Osman Mohamoud Moge died for the defense of Islam.

NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – Islamic extremists from the rebel Al Shabaab militia last week publicly beheaded a mother of two girls and her cousin in southeastern Somalia after discovering they were Christians, sources said.

In the port town of Barawa in the Lower Shebelle Region, the extremists on March 4 called residents to the town center to witness the executions of the 41-year-old mother, Sadia Ali Omar, and her 35-year-old cousin, Osman Mohamoud Moge, the sources said.

Before killing them, an Al Shabaab militant announced, “We know these two people are Christians who recently came back from Kenya – we want to wipe out any underground Christian living inside of mujahidin [jihadists’] area,” according to an area resident whose name is undisclosed for security reasons.

Omar’s daughters, ages 8 and 15, were witness to the slaughter, sources said, with the younger girl screaming and shouting for someone to save her mother. A friend helped the girls, whose names are withheld, to relocate to another area.

“We are afraid that the Al Shabaab might continue monitoring these two children and eventually kill them just like their mother,” the area resident said.

The militants from Al Shabaab – which has vowed to rid the country of the Christian fellowships, which meet secretly as leaving Islam in Somalia is punishable by death – became suspicious of Omar and Moge due to their irregular attendance at Friday mosque prayers, sources said.

“The two people who were killed on many occasions did not take Friday prayers seriously, especially Omar, who claimed that she was praying in her house,” another area resident said.

Another source noted of Al Shabaab, “They have some spy everywhere in Somalia.”

Somalis who have lived in Christian-majority Kenya are especially suspect. The sources said Omar lived in the Nairobi suburb of Eastleigh for seven years; her husband became ill in 2011 and returned to Somalia, where he died. Omar and her cousin Moge, who helped take care of her daughters, left Kenya for Somalia in January 2013.

Barawa reportedly came under Al Shabaab control in 2009. In October 2013, a U.S. Navy SEAL team raided a beachside house in the town in an unsuccessful search for Al Shabaab leader Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr.

In the capital city of Mogadishu last October, gunmen who said they intended to kill a Christian for spreading his faith shot him to death, according to an area resident. Two men armed with pistols on Oct. 20, 2013 shot Abdikhani Hassan seven times as he approached his home after closing his pharmacy in Dharkenley District. Hassan was survived by a wife who was pregnant and five children ranging in age from 3 to 12.

The Somali cell of Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab was suspected of killing Fatuma Isak Elmi, 35, on Sept. 1, 2013 inside her home in Beledweyne, Hiran Province in south-central Somalia (see Morning Star News, Sept. 9, 2013). Her husband had received a threatening note that morning believed to be from the Islamic extremist group and was away at the time of the murder.

On April 13, 2013, Al Shabaab militants shot Fartun Omar to death in Buulodbarde, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Beledweyne (see Morning Star News, April 22, 2013). Omar was the widow of Mursal Isse Siad, killed for his faith on Dec. 8, 2012 in Beledweyne, 206 miles (332 kilometers) north of Mogadishu. He had been receiving death threats for leaving Islam (see Morning Star News, Dec. 14, 2012).

Siad and his wife, who converted to Christianity in 2000, had moved to Beledweyne from Doolow eight months before. The area was under government control and there was no indication that the killers belonged to the Al Shabaab rebels, but the Islamic extremist insurgents were present in Buulodbarde, and Christians believed a few Al Shabaab rebels could have been hiding in Beledweyne.

On June 7, 2013 in Jamaame District in southern Somalia, insurgents from the group shot 28-year-old Hassan Hurshe to death after identifying him as a Christian, sources said (see Morning Star News, June 20). Al Shabaab members brought Hurshe to a public place in the town of Jilib and shot him in the head, they said.

On Feb. 18, 2013, suspected Islamic extremists shot Ahmed Ali Jimale, a 42-year-old father of four, on the outskirts of the coastal city of Kismayo (see Morning Star News, Feb. 28).

In Barawa on Nov. 16, 2012, Al Shabaab militants killed a Christian after accusing him of being a spy and leaving Islam, Christian and Muslim witnesses said. The extremists beheaded 25-year-old Farhan Haji Mose after monitoring his movements for six months, sources said (see Morning Star News, Nov. 17, 2012).

Mose drew suspicion when he returned to Barawa in December 2011 after spending time in Kenya, according to underground Christians in Somalia. Kenya’s population is nearly 83 percent Christian, according to Operation World, while Somalia’s is close to 100 percent Muslim.

Father Paolo Scarafoni L.C is the Rector of the University of Europe and Prof. Roberto de Mattei head of the Faculty of Historical Sciences at the same university and interpreting Vatican Council II with a false premise. This protects their career and there are no legal threats based on Leftist laws.

They are both using the false premise of being able to see the dead.So Vatican Council is presented as a break with Tradition, a break with the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus and the Syllabus of Errors. This is politically correct with the Left but it is also a lie. Since there are no such cases known to us of the dead in Heaven being visible on earth.

There are no exceptions in Vatican Council II to the traditional interpretation of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus which is not affirmed by either Fr.Scarafoni or Roberto Mattei.

When I was studying Philosophy at the University Pontifical Regina Apostolorum (UPRA) Fr.Paolo Scarafoni was the Rector. I was told my scholarship would be stopped if I did not end distributing pamphlets, outside the university premises on the Notification on Fr.Jacques Dupuis SJ by the CDF, Dominus Iesus and the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

Fr.Scarafoni and the faculty at the UPRA were receiving the threats by the leftists.

Now Fr.Paolo Scarafoni and Prof. Roberto Mattei are interpreting Vatican Council II in which LG 16,LG 8, UR 3, NA 2 etc are considered visible exceptions to the traditional extra ecclesiam nulla salus.These cases are considered visible when really they are invisible for us and so irrelevant to the dogma on salvation.

Father Paolo Scarafoni has majored in dogmatic theology and is presently teaching theology at UPRA. He interprets Vatican Council II with the irrationality of the dead-saved, now in Heaven being visible exceptions.

He could not affirm the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus in 2000-2002 when he was the Rector of the University Pontificial Regina Apostolorum (UPRA). His theology supposes that there are known exceptions. This prevented any personal charges against him and threats to his career as a Rector.It was also a denial of the Catholic Faith.

They are both not affirming the Catholic Faith clearly and honestly. They claim that there are known exceptions in Vatican Council II to the literal and traditional interpretation of extra ecclesiam nulla salus. This error is taught to the students and the faculty avoid controversy.

Also to suggest that the Holy Office 1949 condemned Fr.Leonard Feeney for heresy for not accepting the baptism of desire as an exception to the dogma, is to imply that Pope Pius XII made an objective mistake. -Lionel Andrades